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It's Fun to Play the Piano ... Please Pass It On!

Jerry, congrats for your jamming experience with a neighbor. It must have been fun.

SwissMS - I too envy you for Bosendorfer experience. I haven't even seen one.

My Achievement. I finally registered for Summer Keys. Yay! I'm very excited. My husband finally agreed to come with me. He will cycle around the beach while am at school. I opted for learning Mozart Sonata for 2 piano's in D at the piano camp rather than solo piece. It's not easy to study 2 piano pieces at a normal setting because you do need 2 pianos. My teacher thinks its within my reach. I will prepare the piece before I go though. I would like to try both parts if i can. I also took option to study with other instruments. Cannot wait.

Malkin, I wonder if you relaxed your shoulder and curve your fingers when you are piping those icings (just kidding!). It depends on the quantity and viscosity of icing, I know. When I was in college, I was working as a morning muffin baker and occasional wedding cake decorator. I used to have pain in my arms after Thanksgiving and Christmas season.

I don't know if this counts as an achievement, but it sure made my day. I usually play with headphones because I live in an apartment. Today, I played without the headphones and my husband walked by and said in a surprised voice "Your are really getting pretty good!" He may be a biased listener, but I will take the praise! What I nice way to celebrate a year of hard work. I think I will go have Prosecco now.

Hi Folks!I've been away for a week - we were spending Christmas with family. It is good to be home and I can't wait to get into my piano routine again!!!

So much going on - repetetive strain from cookie decorating? How many cookies did you make Malkin?

I didn't make cookies but we made Christmas cake and Christmas pudding to take to the family - both were a huge big hit. As I had no piano AOTW to report, that will have to do!

Toastie, I hope you are feeling better!SwissMS - I too play with headphones a lot - particularly on weekends and evenings, when everyone is home (everyone meaning my hubby and the neighbours) - so it is indeed a great thrill to have him recognize when progress has happened - I know exactly how you feel!

PaperClip - nice to see you! Any piece of Chopin is a treat - and it is great to find one that is in your range! Have fun with it!

FarmGirl, how will a skype work for your piano party if there are several folks participating? Any ideas? Maybe we can have a "time slot" Maybe it will be too complicated! lol. We shall see.

Congrats to everyone on their AOTWs!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

My achievement is that I am apparently ready to start grade 1 stuff now. That and my teacher wrote in my book that my homework piece was exceptional, which made me smile as I had spent a long time on it. This was all very exciting and I stayed for an hour instead of half an hour, which was lovely except that I now have so much stuff to work on at home that I have had to make myself a chart so that I can get through everything this week. I had one piece to do last week and I did a few extra pieces because it didn't feel like much, but it seems to have prompted my teacher to give me seven things to do this week instead of the usual few. It's nice, it's just there's a lot and I'm not sure how great it's all going to be by next week.

Congratulations Toastie!! Exceptional is pretty darn good and that's a big achievement.

Campus is closed between Christmas and New Years and even with a long to-do list I'm enjoying the time off. Playing lots of piano music. I've learned Wild Rider during the break and trying to get it up to speed so that it sounds like a wild stallion instead of a plodding old gelding. The quick learning was an achievement AND I believe this is my 500th post to PW.

Week 42: My life schedule is moving back to a place where I will have more time for piano. Yippee. This week, the guitar teacher, music student Kim was at the Christmas party. He brought along a friend, Terry who is studying voice at the same school. They did a few songs for the Christmas party crowd. I did not. I commented to someone else at the party, that a person must be very good, and/or from a wealthy family to be studying music full time with no backup plan in sight.

I started working on Canon in D. It feels like an impossible task for someone that can't sight read. I printed out an ABC format arrangment for four instruments and it is beyond anything I have ever tried to decipher. Another new project is doing a piano arrangement for In Dreams, from the Lord of the Rings movies. It is a beautiful, almost ethereal tune on the whistle. It loses much of that essence on piano, but a piano can do harmonies. My first attempts at harmony sounded terrible, but trial and error, is getting me to an arrangement that sounds like music. I'm sure the written arrangement is far from what I am devising, but that matters not. The journey is its own reward. It is the first time I am taking a piece that I know on whistle and adapting it for piano.

I am considering an instrument upgrade, but the first priority is rearranging things so I can keep my current rig set up instead of having to pull it from under the bed everytime I want to play.

I have the sniffles, and some mild vertigo, which is disconcerting, but still find time and energy for the piano keyboard.

Sand Taiger - Canon in D is one of my true favourites. The music from Lord of the Rings is wonderful too - and that piece in particular! You are so right that the journey is its own reward.

I hope you can reorganize so that getting to play is not such a challenge of moving things about - but above all I hope the vertigo goes away quickly! That's realy unpleasant!

Toastie - yipee on Grade 1! and what a great compliment from your teacher!

Wisebuff -woohoo 500 - and I think a great number right here in AOTW Good luck getting that stallion to rear and strut his stuff!

Malkin - 1 kg of flour... that sounds like a rather large batch indeed!

Yesterday I just noodled, and was aghast to feel that I had completely forgotten how to play Lilla from memory - a piece I've been playing for 2.5 years - every week, and in fact most days!!!! My brain just refused to find the starting notes. I found that I could not "think" my way through it, and just had to let my hands "fall" into position (after about 20 tries). It finally clicked. How very disconcerting.I was more satisfied this morning when I tackled my assigned pieces and felt that I had not lost any ground on my German Dances (I would have wept)... and I have tackled an new baroque piece which is starting off rather well.

I spent part of the morning listening to 1 of the 17 disk collection of the complete works of Chopin - a Christmas gift from my niece. I listened to the Waltzes. Heavenly stuff.

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

Well I wrote a post but it got disappeared. Well in short the date for my piano party is set 2/16/12. This is more like an informal gathering now that I know there may be another bigger one coming in the summer. Hint. High in the mountains where Llamas roam with concert gland. Cheryl - the Skype session may be difficult at this time since the gathering is in the evening. Let's wait for the bigger one in the summer. We should plan for a lunch time or early afternoon time. You know the host. Let's start asking him for that. No piano related achievement. I just made Turkey chili that tastes more like ratatouille stew. I don't seem to have a cooking talent either. I also manage to misread Archangel as Dark angel during the singing in church. I was the only soprano today (red face). Hope people thought it was my Japanese accent.

FarmGirl - ok, we'll see about the skype for a future event. It could end up being just too tricky, but we'll see.I do indeed know to whom you are referring for the summer event!

Maybe no one heard your little gaffe in church today - but I confess I did laugh when I read it.

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

.....My AOTW was to get an 8 min. 20 sec. rendition of Canon in D (Monica K's version from her youtube channel). I hit a few wrong notes (nothing major) and kept going to the end. My previous best was 9 min. (last week) and 10 min (last month).

For reference, Monica does it in 4 min. 07 sec. , so I still have to rev things up further to get up to speed.

Nevertheless, after I finished I jumped up from the piano and did a fist pump.

Since I wrote this post I've been able to get Canon consistently below eight minutes and just below seven minutes several times of late. Tonight I did a 6 min 30 sec rendition, and it was a pretty good one (probably my best yet)! Two-handed fist pump!

About half way through it I thought to myself, "Hey, this is going pretty well. About time to screw up!" But I didn't; I kept going. I even had my husband for an audience (though he was out of sight in the living room).

It was a nice, positive way to end (in one more day) the year. Best of the New Year to all!

The end of the year is traditionally a time for making resolutions for the new year. I'm more interested today in what AOTWers might regard as their "Achievement of the Year" with respect to their piano life for 2012.

I've been trying to come up with some concrete bullet-point type items, but I'm not sure they fall into the "concrete" category. But here goes:

+ branched out from my method books+ took on some harder pieces that I've enjoyed immensely learning and playing + practiced every day courtesy of my own self-discipline stick and the MOYD carrot+ have begun to seriously consider getting a teacher because I think I'm in this thing (piano) for the long haul

What is your 2012 AOTY?

(Casinitaly, I hope you don't mind my asking this here. It seemed like the logical place--and logical group of responders--of which to ask the question. --Stubbie)

Piano is so full of little achievements that accumulate over time. I would be hard pressed to put my finger on any one thing I did last year and call it my AOTY - there are things I am particularly proud of, but I doubt that they really are more important than the cumulative effect of all the daily/weekly triumphs.

Today I played a phrase of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata in a way that was more beautiful than I've ever played that part before. I feel great about that. But I could not have done it without the last month or so of small victories that have allowed me to get there.

My AOTY... getting as far as I reasonably could by learning with no particular approach aside from just playing what I wanted. Then recognizing that I do need an approach, getting great advice from the good folks here, and starting to put a plan into practice. I'm really looking forward to 2013!

_________________________
"...when you do practice properly, it seems to take no time at all. Just do it right five times or so, and then stop." -- JimF

Happy New Year to all my special AOTW buddies - Especialy Jim the Graphics King and a very Happy Birthday to FarmGirl!

My AOTY goal....... So many, it is hard to be specific, but I think the word "fluidity" captures the idea. I want to play more smoothly, seamlessly, I want to make it sound easy. No.... what I really want is for it to become easiER. As Jim said...there are so many baby steps that lead up to a significant change, it is hard to make a list of what they are or might be!

Best wishes everyone!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

Hmm, my achievement of the year... that's a tough one. I think I'll go with sticking with it. I'm at about a year and two months now. I went from playing primer pieces to doing Grade 1 and trying some Grade 2 pieces. I've learned enough to know my playing is really rough and I need to work way more to get where I want to go.

I also figured out what my overall goals are for piano for the next few years but haven't figured out what mini goals that would turn into for this year.

It's been a great year and I'm so glad my journey includes all of you!

Happy New Year everyone! I agree that most of the achievements over the year were small steps on the way to becoming a better pianist. If I had to pick one AOTY, it would be accumulating a repertoire of music that I can play from memory. Now if I see a lonely piano somewhere I can share this music with it. It also means that I confidently play something for guests when they ask me to. I had never memorized anything prior to 2012, so I could never play without the sheets. To be able to is very liberating.